Chapter Fourteen
ZANDER
My instincts are fucking perfect—I knew that Leona would send me something nice after I had to turn down time with her this morning.
The first is a cute little message and a picture of her thighs. She’s right. Those bruises need refreshing. My mouth waters almost immediately, as if my teeth can remember how it feels to sink deep into her skin.
The real treat, however, is the video that’s right after it.
My Leona’s gotten good at taking videos.
Her pretty pink pussy lips spread, showing me her slick, wet entrance.
Her fingers work over her lips and her clit.
I love watching the way her hips buck—and I can hear her moans in the background, a sweet, delicious noise that has my cock hard.
Getting to see this, especially after dishing out some well-deserved punishment, has me wanting to take out all this left over aggression on her.
Pretty little thing doesn’t realize how badly she’s got me.
Just got done. Meet you at your place. Don’t give a fuck if Erin and Laurel are there. They can listen to how I make you scream.
I send off the message and head out of the basement. I have enough self-control to get myself cleaned up a bit. As sexy as the blood is, walking around in broad daylight looking like I’ve just come out of a fight probably isn’t the best move.
Note to self, test the waters on that one.
I shower and get dressed in a pair of black jeans, a pair of trainers and a white t-shirt. I check my phone again to see if Leona’s responded. Nothing. She has read my message, though.
“Playing coy? Interesting.” It riles me to think she’s seen my message but hasn’t felt the need to reply to me. I can think of a few things to do to her to remind her I don’t like being ignored. All of them involve making her cry.
She’s such a pretty crier.
I roll up to her place, knocking on the door. I make sure it’s powerful and insistent—so she knows exactly who it is at the door before she even opens up. But it’s not her that answers.
“Oh fuck,” I say when I see Erin and Laurel there but with no Leona.
“Well good afternoon to you, too,” Erin says.
“Woa—the fuck, Zander?” Laurel raises a brow as I push my way in.
“I’m meeting up with Leona. Not that it’s any of your business.” I make my way toward the stairs, but Erin gets her hand on my arm before I can even hit the bottom stair.
“Meeting here? She’s not even here, you weirdo.”
I cock my brow and look back at her.
“What do you mean, she’s not here?”
Erin huffs, folding her arms over her chest. “I mean what I said, dick head. She’s not here. She headed out way earlier. Haven’t seen her since.”
That’s weird. I pull out my phone again. She’s still not replied. I send another message.
Where you at?
Again, almost as soon as I send the message, it shows that she’s read it, but she doesn’t respond. I get frustrated.
Stop playing games. What are you doing? You’re not at the house?
Again. Read, no reply.
“Maybe she’s at Valens?” Erin suggests. “She said she was going to head out and get some classwork done since Laurel and I were also busy today getting a project done. It’s not like we keep a tracker on her though.”
I’m beginning to think maybe that’s not such a bad idea. But, I shake my head.
“I just came from Valens. She wasn’t over there.”
“Welllll, maybe she went over there while you were coming over here?” Erin frowns. “Then again you guys probably would have seen each other if that was the case.”
“No shit.”
Erin glares at me. “There’s no need to talk to me like that. Here, I’ll see if she replies to me.”
“Why the fuck would she reply to you and not me?”
Erin rolls her eyes.
“What if I told you that sometimes, girls tell their friends things they don’t tell their boyfriends. Girl code! Give me a sec.”
Erin types away on her phone. I’m tempted to snatch the damn thing from her. Almost immediately after she hits send, her phone chimes.
“Oh that’s her. She—“ Erin pauses, her brows furrowed as she glances to me. “Well, she’s busy, I guess—”
Before Erin can say anything, I give into the impulse to snatch the phone from her for real.
“Hey! Give that back!”
I put one arm out, holding her away from me as I read the message from Leona.
Hanging with Matthew. Don’t tell Zander.
My blood boils. The fuck does she mean, she’s hanging with Matthew? And she has the nerve to tell Erin not to say anything about it?
Without thinking, I throw Erin’s phone at the wall.
“Fuck!” I shout.
“Hey! Don’t take your shit out on my property! I’m not the problem here!”
Erin’s yelling at me the entire time I storm out of the house. I see red. It’s different than the last time I heard that Leona had gone over there. This time, she’s mine for real. This time, she’s trying to hide this shit from me. I’m gonna—
Somehow, I end up in my car. Without realizing through the rage, I drove all the way back to Valens House. I’m parked outside, my hands on the wheel. All my thoughts run together.
I need to think. The last time I didn’t think, I beat Leona’s best friend’s face in. I tried to kill him.
Think first, act later, is not my strong suit. And why should it be? I’m not a one-woman kinda man. I don’t settle down. But with Leona, I was willing to do it. Make her the only one, the complete object of my fantasies and my feelings.
And she fucks around behind my back with Matthew Henderson of all people?
I don’t know who I want to hurt more: her, or him. Maybe make her watch while I make him sorry for ever thinking he could put his hands on what belongs to me.
While I’m fuming, suddenly, someone knocks on my car window. I look up. It’s Tilly.
Fuck. I don’t wanna see this bitch today.
I roll my window down and growl out at her.
“The fuck do you want, Tilly?”
She shrinks back a little, but stays where she is.
“Uhm… Just wanted to check in on you…” she mutters. “You seen Leona anywhere, by the way?”
“No,” I snap. “I haven’t.” And honestly, I’m not sure if I do right now. Still… I glare at her. Does she know something I don’t? “Why do you ask?”
Tilly looks incredibly guilty now. Like she knows something that she definitely shouldn’t. She bites the corner of her mouth and looks me up and down.
“I… I mean I don’t want to cause any trouble…”
“You cause trouble just looking at guys,” I snap. “What. Do. You. Know?”
She looks scared out of her mind. Her eyes don’t meet mine when she speaks in rapid succession.
“Okay, so, Matthew pulled me aside a few hours ago. Said that he wanted me to do a favor for him.”
“I’m not seeing how this is my problem—“
“If you’d let me finish!” Her voice gets shrill, and she clears her throat before going on.
“Anyway, he asked me to tell Leona that he was looking for her. Wanted to talk to her, or whatever. So, I told her, and she went. I got curious, so, I tailed her all the way there. Managed to slip in promising to give the door guy a blowie. Anyway, I just catch her going up into the top floor, right? And then she’s up there for a little while… ”
She looks nervous now, like she doesn’t really want to say what’s coming next.
“Then what, goddamn it? What?”
“I sneak up! I want to know what they’re talking about. I get upstairs and I go down the hall toward Matthew’s bedroom. But when I’m almost there, he comes out of the bedroom, and Leona’s over his shoulder. Like… passed out. She looked messed up.”
My blood boils at the information. Passed out… I’m so fucking angry I can’t form the words. What the fuck did he do to her?!
I’m seeing red. I bolt out of my car and grab Tilly by the front of her thin, barely-there top. I slam her against the side of my car. It is taking every bit of self-control I have inside of me to remind myself that I don’t hit women, not even conniving bitches like Tilly.
“Why the fuck did you send her there? I snarl. Huh?”
“I thought they were going to talk!” she snaps back at me, though there’s tears in her eyes.
“I didn’t think he was gonna… I don’t know.
Whatever it is he’s trying to do! I didn’t sign up for that!
It’s no secret that I’m not a huge fan of Leona,” Tilly says.
“But I know Matthew. Push him and he will go too far. I don’t dislike the girl enough to want her dead.
And I don’t want to see my brother serving a life sentence because of her, either. ”
“Yeah, well, maybe if you had a fuckin’ spine, this wouldn’t be happening.”
“What’s going on?”
Lucien strolls out of Valens House, Damien and Shawn not far behind him. Erin and Laurel run towards us too. They’re a mix of curious and cautious.
I toss Tilly away, sending her stumbling pathetically.
“This bitch sent Leona off to Matthew’s and says she saw him carrying her unconscious out of his bedroom.”
The guys exchange a look. First it’s shock, then it’s anger.
Leona belongs to me, after all. That makes her a Valens girl.
It makes her one of us.
“So, we’re rolling up on him, right?” Damien says.
“No questions asked. Shoot first, interrogate later, right?” Lucien chimes in.
“I—I hear that there’s a shed in the back,” Tilly speaks up. “But it’s not a shed. It leads down to some secret basement type shit from the days this was a frat and not a house.”
I glare down at Tilly.
“If you’re wrong, and I don’t get to Leona in time, mark my words it ain’t just Matthew that’s getting his reckoning.”
Tilly shrinks back from me, but I don’t feel guilty. I have no idea how long Matthew’s had her, or what he’s done to her. The only thing I know for sure is that he wouldn’t have gotten it easy.
My Leona’s a fighter.
Suddenly I feel my phone vibrating against my leg, and I snatch it out of my pocket. Relief floods through me when I see Leona’s name on the screen.
However, my relief turns to cold dread, when I take the call.
“Hello Zander,” a male voice says. “This is Matthew Henderson. I have your precious little Leona here with me.”